A 'visually striking' new installation is on display in St Albans Museum + Gallery for seven weeks.
Chaos Dancing Cosmos by artist Rosana Antolí is a contemporary installation set against the backdrop of the Assembly Room.
The new exhibit opened on Saturday, January 15 and will run until March 6.
This stunning art installation is curated by University of Hertfordshire's UH Arts + Culture in partnership with St Albans Museum + Gallery.
Rosana's site-specific installation uses around 2km of rubber and copper piping and the remarkable installation transforms the historic Assembly Room.
UH Arts + Culture has had a longstanding and successful partnership with St Albans Museums, providing 20 years of exhibition curation expertise to create innovative and thought-provoking displays that respond to the unique building and its collections.
Head of UH Arts + Culture, Annabel Lucas, said: “We are delighted to introduce such a visually striking and responsive site-specific installation to the Museum + Gallery and to our audiences.”
Chaos Dancing Cosmos takes over the space, bringing an interactive and immersive experience for all who visit.
Small motors connected to the piping make the installation move – giving a human characteristic to an inanimate object.
This piece is inspired by Antolí’s continuous investigation around the concept of repetition and the ‘infinite loop’.
Farhana Begum, museum manager, said: “Chaos Dancing Cosmos is a thrilling piece of contemporary art from Rosana Antolí and we love the impact it has within the Assembly Room.
"Once again, this installation has enabled us to offer visitors something fresh, new, and exciting. We cannot wait to see people’s reactions.”
Rosana Antoli’s practice examines the role of social choreography and movement in relation to visual art.
The Spanish-born, London-based artist works across drawing, sculpture, video, and performance to interact with and observe our movements, creating patterns out of ordinary human actions.
Chaos Dancing Cosmos was first exhibited in Barcelona, Spain, in 2016 and has since toured to various and vastly differing locations across Europe.
The installation is made site-specifically to each venue and now responds to the architectural characteristics of the Assembly Room.
Antolí has added new materials to the installation, to juxtapose with the black rubber and to respond to the Assembly Room’s elegant and historic features.
“I wanted to give a new push to the installation so that it evolves and grows with my artistic research,” says the artist.
“In the last few years, water has become a central element in my work, so for this space, I wanted to create a sense of a tide – like an ocean in continuous movement.”
Councillor Anthony Rowlands, chair of St Albans Council’s public realm committee, added: “Chaos Dancing Cosmos sees the Museum widen its already eclectic and diverse exhibition programme.
"Entering 2022 with this thrilling art installation sets the agenda for the rest of the year. We are delighted that our visitors will see a historic space transformed in this way.”
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